


studies in modern movement

by pentaghastly



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, also a vague fleabag au, enemies (kind of?) to friends to lovers, i will write these two little disaster babies until i die bitch! the end!, sansa has been in love with theon forever and (gasp) same with him!, theon is an artist and sansa runs a cat-fe, they r both dumb and this is just
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-26 11:43:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20389153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pentaghastly/pseuds/pentaghastly
Summary: And look –It’s not as though she actually hates Theon.(or:you know those nights where you're an idiot and you fall in love and ruin everything forever?.)





	studies in modern movement

**Author's Note:**

> i'll write these bitches until im 6 feet in my grave
> 
> comments/kudos mean everything xx

.

“You know that feeling where you run into someone you used to be so fucking angry at – someone you were really, _really_ fucking angry at, for reasons that you can’t even properly identify but you know were absolutely valid at the time – 

“You run into them for the first time in years and your hair is all sweaty from a work-out and you’re not even wearing the yoga pants that make your arse look really good, and they’re all perfect and put-together and smiling at you like they’re actually happy to see you? And then they go in for a hug and _fuck_, they smell good, and they look really good, and you’re standing on the street corner like an idiot thinking: _God, please let them be miserable_.

“Except then it turns out that not only are they not miserable, they’re a successful fucking _artist_ and they’re inviting you to their exhibition tonight, talking about how trendy and cool it’s going to be, and because you’re an awkward bloody idiot you say yes? And then they ask for your number and they’re texting you about it and how already set aside two tickets for you and how it’s sold out entirely, so it’s not even like you could back out if you wanted to.

“But to top it off the worst part out of all of it is that you do want to go, because you’re secretly hoping the art is hideous or someone falls and spills champagne over all of the pieces. It’s a horrible thing to think, but the second you start thinking about it you aren’t able to stop because _God_, it would feel so fucking good.

“Do you know the feeling I’m talking about? I’m sure that I can’t possibly be alone in this. Or I am, and I’ve completely lost my mind.” 

_Beat._

Margaery doesn’t even flinch.

She’s a remarkably strong woman, that one.

“Don’t we all know that feeling?” she says, and Sansa has a sinking suspicion that she’s being mocked. “Although I’m not sure you were specific enough in the details.”

“Oh, fuck you.”

“Likewise, darling.” 

“Dread,” Sansa says, taking a sip of wine that ends up nearly emptying her glass. “I believe that’s the word I’m looking for.” 

There are also a multitude of alternatives, including (but not limited to):

Horror.

Confusion.

Regret.

Anticipation.

…Kind of horny? Although she’s not sure why that one fits.

“Is this your very odd way of asking me to come to the art show of your arch nemesis? Because it all feels a bit murky at the moment.” 

Is it? Sansa’s not actually sure about that. She hadn’t called Margie with the intention of asking her to the show, but now that she thinks about it bringing someone along with her makes a lot more sense than going alone. There’s no part of her that wants to walk around an art show by herself like some sort of pervert.

“He’s not my arch nemesis,” she says instead of offering up an actual answer, “More like an ongoing thorn in my side for the first eighteen years of my life.”

Margaery smirks. 

“Sounds hot.” 

“He’s _not_ hot.”

(He absolutely is.)

Margaery looks at her for a moment – a long moment, as if she’s trying to determine whether or not it’s worth it to drill Sansa on this more. It would be worth it for her because Margie is very good at getting people to tell her things, but Sansa does everything that she can to try and convey an expression of closed-offness.

She doesn’t want to go into the sordid, humiliating history of her backwards relationship with Theon Greyjoy. It takes at least five tequila shots and a lot of crying to get her in the mood for that sort of conversation.

“I’ll go. Obviously.” Margaery’s fingers tap on the surface of the table, obnoxiously perfect, “But you are going to have to explain this eventually.” 

Eventually.

So long as eventually isn’t tonight, Sansa can handle that.

.

And look –

It’s not as though she actually hates Theon.

They just hadn’t ended things on the best terms, and she’d never been too keen on his flirty, womanizing ways, and how he was constantly making her friends fall in love with him and then crushing their hearts with his indifference.

Sansa had never particularly liked the way he treated her, either. He teased her like he teased everyone else except for the fact that he didn’t tease her in a flirty way, and he didn’t tease her like she was a girl – he teased her because she was _Robb’s Little Sister_, a label slapped on her forehead for all the world to see, something that Theon would never let her outgrow. It was different from how he teased Arya. It was a special kind of torture reserved particularly for her.

Jon talked to her about literature. Sam tutored her in Maths. 

Theon called her _Princess_ and tugged her curls.

So he’d been kind, sometimes. So he’d called her beautiful and defended her honour (not that it needed defending) and he’d held her hair back from her face when she vomited her first hangover away – without even telling Robb about it later on, mind you. So he’d done all of that, but it didn’t change the fact that he’d also done a million other intolerable things.

Maybe it’s petty, holding onto a grudge like that for so long. It’s just that after the disaster that was his and Robb’s graduation, Sansa had made every possible effort to pretend as though Theon Greyjoy didn’t exist.

Unfollowed him on social media. Purposely avoided him whenever he came back to town. Told Robb to shut up whenever he brought him up in conversation.

Then she’d moved off, gone to business school, met Margie and sketched up a life plan and by the time they moved back to Winterfell to open a café she’d very nearly almost managed to achieve the incredible feat of forgetting he existed all together. Very nearly, until she’d bumped into him on the street and he’d invited her to his fucking art show and she, like an idiot, had said yes.

He’d just –

He’d smelled so, _so_ good.

What the fuck else was she supposed to do?

.

The art gallery is so fucking pretentious.

“This,” she says, “is _so_ fucking pretentious.”

Margaery looks right at home, eating fancy canapes and drinking champagne all the while acting as though she knows one single fucking thing about art; you would never guess that she confuses Monet with Matisse on a regular basis. She throws Sansa a wink and a smile over her shoulder, entirely too pleased with herself and how well she’s bullshitting her way through the evening, and it feels like a capital offense.

She should have asked Arya to come along with her. Arya would have paused in front of each sculpture for five minutes in silent contemplation before loudly announcing that it looked like a penis until it reached a point where they would be asked to leave.

Margaery is just talking to some handsome older man about _shading_. 

The absolute nerve of her.

She doesn’t see Theon until it’s far too late, until he’s running up to her and wrapping her in a hug that’s nearly suffocating, and _Jesus_ he smells fucking amazing. How, she wonders, is it possible for someone to smell that good? She doesn’t even think it’s cologne, either. He’s just got the olfactory equivalent of liquid gold coming out of his pores.

“I’m so glad you could come, Sans.” He sounds genuinely, actually glad, and it’s at once touching and kind of terrifying. “It means a lot. Really.” 

“Yes. Well,” she ignores Margaery’s pointed gaze, focusing instead on Theon’s smile – how on Earth does he have such perfect teeth? She knows for a fact that he never had braces. “Margie offered to pay for the Uber and you’d already put aside the tickets, so it’s not as though I had any excuse not to.” 

A pause, far too heavy.

Then –

Laughter.

“Glad to see you’re still a proper bitch, then.”

_That’s_ the Theon she knows, although he sounds almost affectionate when he’s speaking to her, and his right hand is still resting gently against her forearm. It’s impossibly soft. Has he always had such great hands?

“Glad to see you’re still a massive prick.”

“Still _got_ a massive prick, at least.”

“Really? Because that’s not what I remember hearing from Maya.”

“Nah, you’ve got it all twisted. Maya’s just got an absolutely massive –” 

The prim old man that Margaery had been talking to coughs, obviously annoyed, and Theon is grinning like a bloody fool.

She’s smiling. He’s smiling at her, and she’s smiling back, and she hadn’t even realized that she was smiling until her face started hurting. Now she’s _smiling_, and Margaery is staring, and this is all incredibly inconvenient given that she’s sworn to absolutely despise him for the rest of her days.

Fuck Theon Greyjoy. Fuck Theon Greyjoy and his propensity to turn her into a fumbling, ridiculous fool. Fuck his perfect smile and his smell and his hands, his beautiful fucking hands – one of which that has slid down her forearm to grab onto her own and squeeze it, gentle and soft, like something from a Hallmark movie. She’s only grateful that Robb is out of town, that he’s not there to witness her resolve crumble in a matter of –

“It’s been, what, five years since we’ve properly seen each other?”

Four and a half, actually.

Not that she’s been keeping track.

“God, it must have been the graduation party, wasn’t it?” Her brain freezes a bit, but Theon doesn’t seem to notice; Theon just keeps talking as though nothing is wrong. “Although I was so pissed that night that I don’t really remember much of it, so I don’t know that it counts.”

She slips her hand out of his.

“Small miracles, as they say.”

Christ, her voice is shaking.

“So,” Margaery cuts in, and for the first time that night Sansa is incredibly thankful that she brought along her most charming friend, “which of these delightful pieces are yours?”

Theon guides them around the room, pointing at paintings of krakens and oceans and they’re quite good, really, much better than she thought they would be. They’re incredibly…_adult_, not what she expected from him, because in all honesty what she had been expecting was naked bodies and some kind of bullshit, pretentious explanation about how him staring at nude women all day is solely part of the artistic process, how the arsehole is just another window into the soul.

He’s really, _really_ good, except none of it matters because Sansa can’t stop thinking about that fucking party.

.

When they go to leave, Theon hugs her again.

He holds on for at least five seconds, and Sansa can literally feel the holes that Margaery’s glare is burning into her back.

“I understand now,” Margaery says, when the silence of the Uber ride is just starting to become oppressive. “He’s in love with you.”

That’s enough to startle a laugh out of her, although it’s less of a _laugh_-laugh and more of a startled noise of disbelief. “You’re out of your fucking mind,” Sansa says, head only a bit foggy with champagne and feet aching from her too-tight heels, “Absolutely mental. Not that that’s any surprise, but it’s always nice to have confirmation.”

“I’m utterly batshit,” she agrees, “and Theon Greyjoy is in love with you.”

He’s not.

“He isn’t.”

He can’t be.

She knows that he can’t be, because Theon Greyjoy’s very lack of romantic interest in her is at the root of the (apparently one-sided) conflict between the two of them. His obvious repulsion at the thought of her as a physical, sexual being with breasts and thighs and other such erogenous zones had been the thing that lead to the deterioration of their almost-friendship in the first place, even if he wasn’t aware of the fact that such a thing had happened at all.

Sansa almost feels guilty, that she’s been walking around with a deep-seeded hatred for Theon and he’s been – well, he’s been off likely thinking very little of her, with absolutely no idea that she’d made a conscious decision to cut him out from her life completely.

“He’s not in love with me,” Sansa insists, “Robb would have told me if he was.” 

Margaery reaches over and pats her thigh in a way that’s half-comforting, half-condescending, and Sansa’s not really sure whether she should laugh or cry. Both, probably, and she hates herself for being such a miserable fucking cliché. All she needs now is a snog in the rain and a shopping montage. 

“Sweetheart,” Margaery says, gentle and sweet, “Robb is about as perceptive as a walnut.” 

She scoffs. “How generous of you.”

The car falls silent once more, and Sansa does whatever she can to avoid making eye contact with her bitch of a best friend. She fumbles with the fan knobs and starts raising and lowering the window until the driver turns around and sends her a glare that prompts her to stop, albeit reluctantly.

It’s Margaery who breaks the silence again, because it usually is – she always knows all of the proper things to say.

“He smells quite good, doesn’t he?” 

“_So_ good,” Sansa agrees.

And that’s the end of it.

.

“What’s a Cat-fé?”

He’s got no reason to be here. Sansa knows Theon, and she knows him well enough to know that he doesn’t have any cats. Even if she hasn’t spoken to him in almost five years (with the exception of the previous night) on account of the fact that she hates him, she’s very positive of this fact.

He’s got no reason to be here, and yet.

“Break it down into its essentials,” she says, refusing to stop her cleaning in order to acknowledge him properly. She didn’t invite him here, after all, and until he stops standing in the doorway like a lunatic and buys something he’s not a paying customer that she needs to respect. “I’m sure you’re clever enough to figure it out.” 

“A café for cats? Didn’t know there was a market for those.” 

“A café _with_ cats.” Theon glances around the empty room as she speaks – they’re the only ones in there, whether on four legs or two. “They’re at the groomers. They tend to get nervous if they don’t all go together.”

He hums, as if that makes an ounce of sense. “How many?”

“Seven.”

“Yours?”

“Up for adoption, actually. We partner with local shelters.”

This isn’t a conversation. It’s a skeleton of a conversation, and yet somehow she doesn’t feel abjectly uncomfortable about the whole thing. She wants him to leave, sure, but it’s much less vitriolic than Sansa expected their first one-on-one interaction in years to be.

“Can I get you a drink?”

Sansa doesn’t really know why she offers. Probably because she needs the money – the café is doing fine, it really is, but running a business is expensive and she can’t really afford to turn away a paying customer. Besides, she _knows_ that Theon is absolutely loaded. She’d done a bit of Googling the night before and, as it turns out, one of his pieces is worth a minor fortune.

Robb could have at least _mentioned_ that his best friend was an up-and-coming art superstar. Sure, she shushed him every time he mentioned Theon’s name, but still.

Exception to the rule and all that.

“Got anything stronger than tea and coffee?” 

“It’s eleven in the morning.” 

“I will if you will, Sans.”

“_Jesus_ Theon, I’m at work!”

“I’ll pay you five times the price of a latté.” 

Sansa sighs, pausing only half a moment before going to lock the door flip the OPEN sign to CLOSED. They’re not licensed to sell liquor so she doesn’t want anyone coming inside, although she’s not exactly worried about customers coming to bang down their door as most people aren’t keen on coming to a cat café when all of the cats are gone. Besides – besides, it’ll be nice to be off of her feet for a little bit, and a fruity drink doesn’t sound like the worst thing in the world.

She’s got a couple of shitty canned coolers and her and Margie keep in the back, and they’re vile but they’re also ten percent alcohol and all she’s got, so she doesn’t think he can complain. 

Theon rolls his eyes when she places two cans down in front of them. “So your taste in alcohol is still shit.”

“Just because I don’t see the appeal in spending two hundred dollars on something that looks and tastes like piss,” she says, “doesn’t mean I have shit taste.”

Sansa knows that she’s smiling again, even though she’s consciously trying her hardest not to. The last thing she wants to do is give him the satisfaction of making him think that she enjoys his company, which she abjectly does _not_. She’s just happy to be spending time with anyone – the café at this time of day can be oppressively lonely.

“You absolutely have shit taste.”

“I don’t –” 

“Joffrey.”

_Fuck_. She knows that she shouldn’t laugh because a crack about her horrible dating history hits a little bit too close to home, but she can’t help it. They’re going straight for the jugular, apparently.

“Ros,” she fires back.

“I didn’t know she was a prostitute!” This is an obvious lie, because _everyone_ knew Ros was a prostitute and if you didn’t then she would make sure to remind you five times in a minute. “What about Harry?” 

“Fantastic in bed, at least.” There’s no way someone that misogynistic should have been that good, and yet – _Christ_. “What’s your excuse for Jeyne, then?”

“She’s your best friend.”

“Exactly,” Sansa tries not to sound too offended by the whole situation, tries to remind herself that it was years ago, but she can’t help some of the bitterness in her voice. “There’s no better indication of how shit your taste is than going after the best friend of your best friend’s little sister. That’s Olympic-level shit taste.”

It hadn’t lasted long, at least. They’d gone on a couple of dates and, to Sansa’s shock, Jeyne insisted that Theon had been a perfect gentleman. He’d done nothing more than slip his hand up the back of her shirt the few times they were making out but he’d just stopped her one time and said that he wasn’t _feeling_ it, that Jeyne was a great person for someone but not for him, and then she’d spent three weeks crying in Sansa’s bed every day after school.

Prick.

He clinks his cooler can against hers, grinning broadly. “To having shit taste, then.”

They’re quiet for another minute, a minute where Sansa has time to count the freckles smattered across his nose and truly appreciate the way his left cheek dimples when he smiles.

It’s infuriating, and she loves it.

“So Robb tells me you hate me.” 

She almost chokes to death on a strawberry cooler.

“Robb,” she says, thinking back on what Margaery said the other night, “is about as perceptive as a walnut.” 

“More like a pecan, I think.”

“A very, very small chickpea.”

“We haven’t spoken since the night of the graduation party.” Theon looks as nervous as she’s ever seen him, and he’s finished his first cooler already which she hadn’t even though was physically possible, “I know that I can be _such_ a prick when I’m drunk, so if I said or did some kind of stupid shit that night, or if I did anything even slightly inappropriate, I need you to know that –” 

“You didn’t,” Sansa interrupts, because this is getting far too painfully awkward and Theon seems genuinely upset. “You didn’t do anything stupid. I’ve honestly just been really busy, and you were never really my friend anyways.”

He flinches.

_God_, she’s a bitch.

“I just mean,” she continues, feeling the hole she’s digging go deeper and deeper, “you only ever hung out with me because of Robb, right? Because I was Robb’s little sister. So I didn’t really think I’d have much reason to contact you.”

At least she can feel good knowing that she’s not lying to him. He’d done everything in his power for as long as she’s known him to remind her that she’s little more than Robb’s annoying sister; if she’d attempted to stay in contact with without having her brother as a barrier then she probably just would have made herself look desperate.

“Right,” he says, “but Robb’s not here now.”

“An astounding observation.”

Her heart is thundering.

_Fucking hell,_ he’s beautiful.

“So maybe we can hang out some more,” he says, painfully casual, heartachingly kind, “and you can come around to not hating me.”

There is absolutely no reason for her to hang out with Theon. She has plenty of friends. She has Arya, Margie, Jeyne, Robb, Bran, Rickon, Gilly – and sure, maybe half of those were her siblings, but she was pretty positive that it counted for something.

She could walk out of this café right now, walk up to anyone on the street, and Sansa’s pretty positive that she could get them to beg her to sleep with them. She’s fully aware of what she looks like. She’s aware of the effect that she has on men, or at the very least on men who aren’t Theon, and the effect that she has on most women too. She knows that she doesn’t _need_ him, and she doesn’t even want him.

Sansa doesn’t want Theon. She doesn’t want his friendship, she doesn’t want invitations to his art gallery, and she doesn’t want him drinking coolers in her fucking café.

“That sounds fine,” she says, “that sounds completely fine. Fine.”

“Sounds like it’ll be fine,” he says.

She hates him.

.

_You know those nights – _

_You know those nights when you’re at the graduation party for your older brother, your emo cousin, and their horndog best friend who you think might actually be the love of your life? There’s a pop song playing in the background and you’re sweaty so it’s not particularly romantic, but you’re pretty sure you saw him checking you out all night and it can’t possibly get any better than this._

_You’ve fancied him since you were thirteen and he’d told you he thought you were beautiful. You’ve been in love with him since he punched your abusive, piece of shit ex-boyfriend in the nose._

_Your hair is fucking perfect and you look really, _really_ good in your dress, and you’re not quite drunk but he is so you think that if you’re ever going to make a move, now is probably your best opportunity. At least if he rejects you horribly or if you make a complete tit of yourself, which you’re often wont to do, there’s a fifty percent chance that he isn’t going to remember even a second of it in the morning. Really, isn’t that the best you could ask for?_

_You approach him, and you’re so fucking nervous but then he puts his arms around you, presses his forehead against yours, and he sighs so contentedly that you begin to wonder if you’ve died and this is all some ridiculous dream. _

_“_Sweet Sansa,”_ he says, and you’ve always loved the way he says your name – so bloody melodic and loving and wonderful. He’s wonderful. Even if most people think he’s an emotionless prick, you know him better than that. “_Sweet Sansa, have I ever told you how much I fucking cherish you? Because I do._”_

_You know he does. You know this because, even though he’s always teasing you and talking about how young and innocent you are, and even though he’s always speaking about you in the context of you brother, he looks at you so different from how he looks at other girls. He looks at you so differently from how he looks at your sister. He looks at you like he might be able to love you too._

_You lean in to kiss him, eyes fluttering closed, and he –_

_He pulls back._

_“_Sweet Sansa,”_ he says, sounding only a bit panicked, “_do your quasi-big brother a favour and talk me up to that divine beauty in the red dress yeah? The one with the massive tits.”__

_You’re in love with him, and you want to vomit._

_So._

_You know those nights?_

.

It’s not like everything changes right away. Not really.

She’s just exceptionally fucking lonely, far more lonely than she’d like to admit, and then suddenly Theon’s just…around. A lot. A lot more than she thought that he would be.

Sansa knows when people are worried about her. She’s had an abusive boyfriend and gone through her stages of grief after her dad passed – she knows when people are looking at her with concern, when they’re swinging by just to make sure that she’s doing alright. She’s not sure that that’s entirely what Theon is doing, but it seems to be at least half of it. 

Sometimes he texts her photos that he thinks will make her laugh. Sometimes he messages her at one in the morning when he’s drunk, pictures of him smiling or messages about how he’s pretty sure he’s being stalked by a crow. 

That shouldn’t be endearing, and yet somehow he makes it so.

He knocks on her door one night with a bottle of wine and a bag of takeout, smiling earnestly, and she wonders if maybe he’s lonely too. Theon’s always struck her as that sort, no matter how often he seemed to be surrounded by people. There’s something about boys who laugh too loud and too long that just properly breaks her heart. It’s a different kind of sadness from the monochrome cloud that seems to follow Jon’s every footsteps, but just because it’s different doesn’t meant that it’s any less palpable.

So she doesn’t quite hate him anymore. She’s still angry about that night, but she’s more angry at herself than she is at him, and five years is a _really_ long time to hold a grudge.

“I could have had a hot date tonight, you know,” Sansa says, letting him in all the while.

“You do,” Theon replies, “and he’s brought you sushi.”

They sit on her couch and watch _Pretty Woman_ and Theon only makes a few comments about Julia Roberts’ breasts, but she thinks it all evens out because she sneaks a couple of jokes about Ros in there – she really can’t help herself, but he doesn’t seem to mind. They’re sitting on the couch together, close but not too close, close enough that her shoulder brushes against his every once in a while, and it’s remarkably…comfortable.

She’s not sure why he’s doing it. She’s not sure why he’s so determined to be her friend, but God help her, it’s working.

And Theon is just always around.

Even more so when Robb gets back from his work trip. They come into the café together on a regular basis – Theon seems to favour Daffodil, a pretty little tabby who’s developed a habit of taking her afternoon naps in his lap.

His presence is never intrusive. It’s never unwelcome. It’s not that he’s _changed_, at least not much. He’s still dirty and inappropriate and a horrid flirt, even hitting on Brienne and practically giving the poor woman a conniption when she’d been trying to serve him a cup of tea. There’s something so much gentler about him now. If he weren’t himself, she might almost describe him as tender.

But he is, unfortunately, very much himself.

In the evenings, when they’re closing up shop and the cats have gone back to the shelter, they sit around and drink (proper wine, not coolers), and laugh, an ever-changing cast of characters. Robb, Margaery, Theon, herself – sometimes Arya and Gendry, sometimes Gilly and Sam, sometimes Jon and Ygritte.

Margaery and Robb’s chairs seem to gravitate closer towards one another on a nightly basis. She’d like to tease them about it, but someone in their little group has to act like a grownup on occasion.

Theon helps her clean the dishes in the back, and she puts on old music and they don’t talk much, which should be awkward but feels surprisingly comfortable. She’s never known him to be capable of going five minutes without making some shitty joke and ruining the mood. He still does that, on occasion, and Sansa ends up snorting and laughing in an incredibly unattractive way but she finds she doesn’t care very much.

“Do you still hate me?” he asks almost every night.

“I never did,” she says, and then adds, “God knows I should have.”

“You couldn’t hate me if you tried,” Theon says, even though he’d been the one to ask her about it just a week ago, “Obviously. It’s part of your Stark DNA – you thrive in the cold, you’re all broody fucking bastards, you have a weird connection with wolves that I don’t quite understand, you love Theon Greyjoy.”

_Love_.

What a pathetic, infuriating word.

She looks out into the café, where Margaery and Robb are holding hands and staring into each other’s eyes, and somehow she thinks that watching the two of them go at it on the table would be way less disgusting than this.

“Jesus,” Theon scoffs. “It’s like, just fuck and be done with it already, you know?” 

Sansa agrees, but she doesn’t want him to know that. “Ever the romantic, Theon. At least you’re consistent.”

“I can be romantic. For the right person.”

“Bullshit.”

“I can!”

“I’d like to see that,” she says, not fully realizing the gravity of her words until they’re out there in the open, hanging between them like five…ridiculously heavy, impossible-to-ignore, embarrassing things.

(So her metaphors need a bit of work, but the point stands.)

“Would you like to come to my studio tomorrow?” he asks.

Sansa’s not quite sure why she says yes.

She’s also not sure why she wouldn’t.

.

“I understand now. I think I had it backwards before,” Margie says, once the boys are gone and it’s just the two of them. “You never hated him at all.”

Sansa doesn’t answer. 

She doesn’t think she needs to.

.

Theon’s studio is in a part of town that she’d never willingly go to on her own, which seems to be an incredibly artist-y thing to do. She should have a very long conversation with him about gentrification and other related issues, and Sansa jots as much down on her mental to-do list.

The studio itself isn’t much to look at. It’s big, spacious, with fantastic lighting and not much else. There are blank canvases everywhere (“_Slow month?_” she jokes, although Theon doesn’t laugh much at that and she feels like a prick immediately after saying it) and some paint-splattered tarps thrown about, but really she just feels as though she’s walked into a messy craft room at a daycare. 

“Are you going to murder me?” she asks, because she can’t help it. 

“Nah,” Theon replies, and she knows that he’s trying not to smile. “Was planning on just a light-torture situation and then seeing where it went from there. You need to work your way up to the good stuff.”

“Naturally.” 

He’s guiding her towards a desk, one of the few proper pieces of furniture in the room, and then he’s opening the desk and pulling out a file filled with paper. Sketch paper, most likely, and Sansa doesn’t really know what to say.

“Is that your serial killer file?” 

“Is there a reason you’re so convinced I’m a murderer?”

She points vaguely to the room around them, shrugging. “Attractive, charming, luring single women to big empty rooms with tarps. Seems vaguely serial killer-esque if you ask me, and I should know. I watch a lot of Criminal Minds.”

He huffs, although the sound comes out more fond than annoyed and it’s utterly delightful, and then hands Sansa the file. 

“Meant to give this to you a while ago, but I never got around to it.”

Never got around to it because –

“Due to the fact that you cut me out of your life without warning, I mean.”

She would respond to that, but the edge of one of the pictures is sticking out from the file and Sansa doesn’t quite know how she knows – because it’s just a drawing of hair, and it could be anyone’s hair, there’s not even any colour, but she knows that it’s her.

This is her hair. This is a drawing of her hair, attached to her head, and it’s a file of drawings of _her_ and Sansa can see the date in the corner – the drawings go back to five, six, nine years ago, back to when she was thirteen and he was fourteen and she was so fucking head over heels in love with him that her heart broke every time he even looked in the direction of someone else. Back to the time he dated Jeyne Poole and she cried herself to sleep every night.

Back to the time he sent Joffrey to the emergency room.

They’re beautiful. Some are messy, some have clearly had more time and effort put into them than others, but each one of them has been drawn with such care. She’s never seen a drawing of herself before, let alone twenty. 

“I know there’s a lot,” he says, “but I’ve had years of practice. I never found anyone I loved drawing as much as I love drawing you.” 

She doesn’t know what to say.

Sansa has no fucking idea what to say.

“Robb would have killed me if he ever found these, so I kept them tucked away. I thought they might make a good birthday present at some point, you know? If I ever stopped being such a prat and told you – but I couldn’t tell you, because first you were Robb’s little sister – I always had to keep reminding myself of that, you know? That you were off-limits – and then later I didn’t think you’d give a shit.” Theon was rambling. Rambling was _her_ thing, and Sansa was actually almost offended. “On account of you hating me and all that.” 

She wants to say –

_I don’t hate you. I never have._

“So I’ve been in love with you since…forever, I guess. And I thought maybe I was over it,” he shrugs, calm and casual as ever, “but then we ran into each other on the street and I was like, _shit_, because I’m fairly certain that you’re the love of my life. So I thought you might like to see these.”

“This,” Sansa says, “is such a fucking serial killer thing to do.”

One beat.

Another.

“It is, isn’t it?” He hasn’t stopped smiling, at least. She thinks she’d be in trouble if he stopped smiling. “Except I’m not going to kill you.”

“Tragic. They’d make this into a brilliant movie.”

They really would.

“Why are you doing this?” Sansa asks, very proud of how well she’s managing to speak at the moment. “Why now, Theon? We haven’t seen each other in five bloody years, and then you just come back with hugs and art shows and portraits and you make me fall in love with you again, which is _incredibly_ unfair because I was fine. I was good, and now I’ve got no fucking idea what to do.” 

“You could let me kiss you,” he says. “That would be a start.” 

Oh.

_Oh_.

“Okay,” she says, after only a moment. “That’d be okay.”

She’s waiting for a joke, waiting for him to make fun of her for her nervousness, but it never comes. It never comes because he’s kissing her, kissing her a _lot_, and the kiss that starts off gentle and hesitant quickly turns into…something else entirely.

Something really, really great. Something overwhelmingly good, and he smells so fucking amazing when he’s this close to her – Jesus, one of these days she’s going to have to ask him what that is, but now she’s got other things to focus on. Things like kissing him. Things like kissing Theon _fucking_ Greyjoy, of all bloody people.

Margaery’s going to have a field day.

“Am I going to have to wait another five years to see you again?” Theon asks, a bit breathless against her lips, and she can feel him smiling. 

Sansa –

Sansa doesn’t answer.

He’ll just have to ask her again in the morning.

.


End file.
